ATFEH. 25

and myriads of swallows circled and twittered over our heads

in the cloudless air. The calm, contemplative state produced

by the coffee and pipes which Ibrahim brought us, lasted the

whole afternoon, and the villages, the cane-fields, the Moslem

oratories, the wide level of the Delta and the distant mounds

of forgotten cities, passed before our eyes like the pictures of

a dream. Only one of these pictures marred the serenity of

our minds. It was an Arab burying-ground, on the banks of

the Canal — a collection of heaps of mud, baked in the sun.

At the head and foot of one of the most recent, sat two wo-

men— paid mourners — who howled and sobbed, in long, piteous, despairing cries, which were most painful to hear. I should

never have imagined that any thing but the keenest grief could

teach such heart-breaking sounds.

When I climbed the bank at sunset, for a walk, the minarets

of Atfeh, on the Nile, were visible. Two rows of acacias,

planted along the Canal, formed a pleasant arcade, through

which we sailed, to the muddy excrescences of the town. The

locks were closed for the night, and we were obliged to halt,

which gave us an opportunity of witnessing an Arabic marriage

procession. The noise of two wooden drums and a sort of fife

announced the approach of the bride, who, attended by her

relatives, came down the bank from the mud-ovens above. She

was closely veiled, but the Arabs crowded around to get a peep

at her face. No sooner had the three Franks approached, than

she was doubly guarded and hurried off to the house of her in-

tended husband. Some time afterwards I ascended the bank

to have a nearer view of the miserable hovels, but was received

with such outcries and menacing gestures, that I made a slow

and dignified retreat. We visited, however, the house of the